An idea for transit crises

Our transportation crisis is a bit like Mark Twain's quip about the weather: If you don't like it, just wait a few minutes.

We once had a viaduct about to fall. Remember? Then we had a floating bridge about to collapse. This week, it's our ferry boats about to sink. Miraculously, when each fresh crisis blows in, it seems to clear away the one that befogged us before.

For instance, I can't recall now what we finally did with that crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct. Did the state hawk that on eBay?

No, that was the ferries, silly. The state's going to auction two perfectly good nine-year-old ferries. Not to be confused with the 80-year-old leaking ferries. Those were still in use until last week. With no plan to replace them.

Seriously, could our transportation planning get any more ridiculous? We had 80 years to prepare for replacing those yeoman Steel Electric-class ferries — the oldest saltwater ferries in the U.S. Instead, we didn't start brainstorming until a week after the leaky boats were yanked off the Port Townsend-Keystone run.

At a meeting this week, a local shipbuilder bowled everyone over by revealing he just built a similar boat for Pierce County (which I think can still be reached without going through eBay). He said he could build another in a year. This would have been timely to know — about a year ago.

Anyway, I come today not only to carp, as justifiable as that would be. We need to go into triage mode around here. To solve these crises, we need to do something radical.

So here's my idea. It would allow us to replace the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge. Buy some new ferries. And establish a new suburban Eastside mass-transit line.

Without raising one penny of new taxes.

What we should do is: cancel the widening of Interstate 405.

That huge project would add two lanes in each direction to the Eastside's freeway. It was tabbed at $11 billion back in 2002 (which, adjusted for construction inflation, equals a googlillion today).

It's not for safety — that freeway isn't about to fall or sink into anything. Canceling those extra lanes, or at least delaying them, would free up $1.2 billion that has already been approved by the voters.

We could divert $1 billion of that to the floating bridge, making rebuilding a go (assuming additional tolling).

We could buy three ferries with another $100 million.

And we could devote the other $100 million to getting commuter rail running on the Eastside line.

Forty miles of track are begging to be used. Happily, it runs next to I-405 — the very place I'm stealing all this money. This week, a former BNSF official estimated it would cost nearly $40 million to ready the track for 40-mph passenger-train service.

Yes, this would mothball a popular road project. But in exchange it solves two of our most vexing safety issues, now, without new taxes. And throws in a few extras to boot.

Or, we could wait some more. Another front will be along soon.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.